BIRDS do it, bees do it . . . and bonobos probably overdo it. Nor are those promiscuous primates alone. Apparently, camels shag themselves silly in the sand, dolphins are into water sports – and kangaroos go down under. On themselves.

Darwin be damned: The survival of the species is all fine and well, but some gorillas just wanna have fun.

And so, according to the eye-popping new exhibit at the Museum of Sex, do most members of the animal kingdom.

Via videos, photos, artifacts and sculptures, “The Sex Lives of Animals” goes where Animal Planet fears to tread.

“This is content you don’t see in other museums,” MoSex curator Sarah Jacobs says.

“It’s so in line with our mission: creating a discourse. We feel we’re creating a new natural history” – one in which homosexuality and sex simply for pleasure’s sake are a natural way of life for many species.

Here we learn that bonobos – just a few chromosomes away from ourselves, they even walk erect now and then – will trade food for sex. Indeed, upon entering the exhibit, we’re greeted by a statue of a male bonobo, sugar cane in hand, who seems very happy to see us.

Apparently, bonobos have no compunction about having sex whenever and however they like. Judging from videos, their matriarchal society is a hotbed of girl-on-girl action – not so much for pleasure, we’re told, but as a way of reducing conflict and smoothing social interaction. And to think Carrie and Co. settled for Cosmos.

We also learn that captive pandas are clueless when it comes to mating, necessitating screenings of “panda porn” to figure out what goes where; and that male maques, also primates, will forfeit food for peeks at the posteriers and privates of the female of the species.

More unsettling is the tale of the necrophiliac duck, as related by a researcher in Rotterdam: Horrified, he saw a duck crash into the window of his building and die, only to be defiled on the spot by its pursuer.

That aside, curator Jacobs says, rape is rare among animals. More often, she says, they can be quite gentle. Look no further than the museum’s video of bears exploring what seems to be some ursine Kama Sutra.

Clumsily but gently, they grapple with one another like a hairier, chubbier version of the “Joy of Sex” couple.

All told, “The Sex Lives of Animals” is far more scientific than salacious. Its best, most humanizing touch are Rune Olsen’s life-size sculptures: Made of paper and tape over metal frames, they have eerily human (glass) eyes, some the same shade of blue as those of the Norwegian artist who made them.

Even the wall text – a daunting amount of it – isn’t without wit. Debunking the myth that the female praying mantis always decapitates her lover, a University of Melbourne professor writes, “They are perfectly capable of mating without losing their heads.”

A good lesson, certainly, for all of us.

“The Sex Lives of Animals” is at the Museum of Sex, 233 Fifth Ave., at 27th Street; museumofsex.com